ASHLAND – The winning word for seventh-grader Jacob Stump was very fitting for a spelling bee: “thesaurus.”
Stump, a student at St. Edward’s, successfully spelled the word in the seventh round of the seventh/eighth grade competition after Thor McDonald from Hillsdale stumbled on the vocabulary section in Round 6.
Stump won the 7th/8th grade portion of the 2017 Ashland County Spelling Bee Tuesday night at the Ashland County-West Holmes Career Center.w
“I was really excited,” Stump said of the moment when he realized he had won.
This was not Stump’s first time holding a spelling bee trophy; he won the sixth grade competition last year.
The champion said he practiced with his mom and his teacher to get ready for the competition.
Thirteen competitors took part in the 7th/8th grade bee. Nine spellers were knocked out in the first round and two more fell in round 2, leaving just Stump and McDonald.
In the sixth grade spelling bee, Riley Hammond of Ashland Middle School outlasted Ray Daugherty III from C.E. Budd Elementary School. to win first place. After Daugherty misspelled “gladiatorial,” Hammond correctly spelled “undulating,” carefully thinking about each letter before continuing.
“Mostly I just guessed,” Hammond said when asked how he thought through spelling the championship word.
Nine spellers started in the 6th grade bee. Four spellers missed their words in Round 1 and three more ended their night in Round 2.
Illness took its toll on the competition, eliminating two spellers and one of the judges.
Judges were Bonnie Graves from Ashland High School, Denise Ritter from the Ashland Times-Gazette and Sheila Hanna from the Tri-County Educational Service Center.
Chris Meister of the Richland County Board of Developmental Disabilities served as pronouncer for the event.
